Register all packages on r-universe

[larnsce]

Goal

Register the published packages on r-universe so install.packages() works from https://openwashdata.r-universe.dev and owd_install() has a repository to point at.

Rewritten 2026-09-04 per dev/decisions-2026-09.md.

Mechanics

• Create an org repository named exactly openwashdata.r-universe.dev with packages.json at the root: a JSON array of {"package": "<pkg>", "url": "https://github.com/openwashdata/<pkg>"}. Then install the r-universe GitHub App on the org.
• A custom registry supersedes the auto-generated CRAN registry, which is the only reason washr appears on the universe today. washr and owdata are hard-coded into the generated file with a unit test (Build the harvest orchestrator with local and GitHub backends #4).
• Scope: published packages plus washr and owdata. Unpublished packages can be added when their build status is worth showing.
• The harvest writes data-raw/packages.json and the report says when it differs from the last committed copy. The maintainer copies it to the registry repository by hand. No PAT, no sync workflow.

Tasks

• Make this repository public (r-universe builds public repositories)
• Create the registry repository with the first generated packages.json
• Install the r-universe App, with an org owner present, in one sitting
• Check the build results for the published packages

Acceptance criteria

• https://openwashdata.r-universe.dev/api/packages lists the published packages, washr and owdata
• From a fresh R session, install.packages("washmalawi", repos = "https://openwashdata.r-universe.dev") and the same for "washr" both work

[larnsce]

Premortem findings for this issue (advisory, non-blocking)

From the 2026-07-18 premortem (report in docs/ on branch claude/implementation-premortem-jd5udn):

The cutover has three quiet dependencies the issue text names but the plan does not operationalize: the custom registry supersedes the auto-generated one the moment it exists (so washr disappears unless the generated packages.json includes it by construction, not by a note in the plan), the GitHub App install and the org PAT require an org owner who may not be the person doing the work, and the repo-public precondition sits outside this issue. Separately, registering all ~70 packages means roughly 30 dev-tier build failures appearing at once on the exact page owd_install() and the site advertise.

Suggestions:

• Hard-code washr and owdata into the packages.json generator with a unit test asserting their presence (also noted on Build the harvest orchestrator with local and GitHub backends #4).
• Add install.packages("washr", repos = "https://openwashdata.r-universe.dev") to the acceptance criteria alongside washmalawi, and pin washr to a release branch or tag rather than its default branch.
• Do the cutover in one sitting with an org owner available for the App install and PAT, rather than letting a half-configured registry sit live.
• Consider starting the registry with candidate and catalogued packages plus washr and owdata only, and adding dev packages once the dashboard is presentable.
• The org PAT is a silent expiry risk; see the note on Weekly harvest workflow that opens a pull request #9.

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Generated by Claude Code